Bajaj-Triumph Fires Twin Salvos At Royal Enfield’s Middleweight Crown

Triumph Motorcycles Ltd., in association with Bajaj Auto Ltd., has launched in India its first single-cylinder motorcycles since the British marque was revived in the early 1990s, in what is seen as yet another challenge to Royal Enfield’s middleweight crown.

The Triumph Speed 400 and Scrambler 400X—a roadster and an on-off roader, respectively —are powered by 398.15 cc, liquid-cooled, four-valve, single-cylinder engines that make about 40 BHP of power at the crank and sends 37.5 NM of torque to the rear wheel. A six- speed gearbox, slotted in place by a slipper clutch, propels 180 kg of metal and rubber at the twist of a ride-by-wire throttle. The motorcycles are suspended on upside-down forks at the front and a preload adjustable gas monoshock at the rear.

And that’s where the similarities end.

The Triumph Speed 400 is a road-biased motorcycle that plonks the rider at a relatively low 790 mm seat height, as compared to the 805 mm perch on the Scrambler 400X. The roadster rides on 17-inch wheels at the front and rear, while the on-off roader is shod with 19-inch and 17-inch rubber at the front and rear, respectively. The Scrambler is heavier, thanks to a dedicated, reinforced scrambler chassis.

The Speed 400, which will arrive at Triumph India dealerships later this month, is priced at Rs 2.33 lakh, ex-showroom, but the first 10,000 customers can get their hands on the bike for Rs 2.23 lakh. Pricing for the Scrambler 400X, that’ll reach dealerships only in October, is yet to be announced. Bookings are now open.

The starting price is quite competitive, when compared to peers, brokerage Motilal Oswal said in a July 6 research report.

"While awaiting real-world feedback, we believe that these new products will create significant competition for Royal Enfield, which currently holds a monopolist position in the >250cc segment," the brokerage said.

The motorcycles will be produced at Bajaj Auto’s new Chakan plant, which has an installed manufacturing capacity of 25,000 units per month. At first, only 5,000 units of the Triumph 400s will be produced every month, but that can be scaled up as demand intensifies, Rajiv Bajaj, managing director at Bajaj Auto, said at the press launch in Pune on Wednesday.

Bajaj Auto and Triumph also plan to commence exports of the 400 cc singles to the UK, Southeast Asia and Japan by the end of 2023.

“The Indian market is the biggest motorcycle market and we have a significant presence selling about 1,000 bikes in India,” Nick Bloor, chief executive at Triumph Motorcycles, said at the launch event. “The brand has a completely different customer base in India. The bikes will be built in India. We have facilities in Thailand and Brazil, which will also be used to build the bikes.”

Bajaj Auto will set up in the next six months 100 new Triumph showrooms to retail these 400 cc motorcycles alongside the British marque’s full line-up. The brand, at present, has only 15 showrooms in India.

“We will be taking the dealerships of Triumph in a systematic way. Some dealerships will sell only 400, others only CKD and a third type of dealership that will offer the entire Triumph range,” Rakesh Sharma, executive director at Bajaj Auto, said on the sidelines of the event. “We are being selective about it as we do not want to over distribute and then you chop the business opportunity.”

The Made-in-India Triumph 400 brings to fruition an idea that germinated more than a decade ago. According to the Cycle World magazine, Triumph initially wanted to go solo by building a manufacturing plant in India. In the early 2010s, the British company developed in Spain two single-cylinder 250 cc engines to power a ‘Street Single’ and a ‘Daytona 250’, but they—as well as the India plant where they were to be made—never materialised.

Enter Bajaj, in 2017.

The Pune-based automaker and the British marque inked a deal to jointly develop 250-750 cc motorcycles—the so-called middleweight category dominated by Chennai’s Royal Enfield. The tie-up was expanded earlier this year: Bajaj Auto is now responsible for Triumph’s retail operations in India as well as manufacturing the singles at Chakan.

“The objective of this non-equity partnership is to deliver a range of outstanding mid-range motorcycles benefiting from the collective strengths of both the companies,” Bajaj and Bloor had said in a joint statement then. “The motorcycles developed together from this partnership will join the current Triumph product portfolio and be distributed by the Triumph-led dealer network worldwide.”

The motorcycles launched today will reach Triumph’s 15 showrooms in India in the second quarter of the current fiscal. Bajaj Auto plans to expand the dealership network to 120 in the next two years, on the lines of its probiking outlets that retail motorcycles it makes for KTM and Husqvarna.

Bajaj-Triumph, with the 400 cc singles, is making a play for the domestic middleweight motorycle industry dominated by Royal Enfield, Motilal Oswal said in the July 6 research report.

In the fiscal ended March 31, the 350 cc-plus segment clocked an average of 65,500 units/month. That implied a 5% share of the overall two-wheeler industry. Within this, Royal Enfield commanded 93% share, followed by Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India Pvt. Ltd. (4%) and Bajaj Auto (2%).

The Triumph twins would rival the likes of Classic 350, which averages 26,500 units per month, as well as the Hunter 350 (15,900 units) and the newly launched Harley-Davidson X440.

While the H-D X440 S is priced at a 21% premium to Triumph Speed 400, Royal Enfield's Classic 350 Chrome variant is priced on a par. 

Triumph’s success in the middleweight category, courtesy the 400s, could add Rs 397 upside to Bajaj Auto’s bull case, Morgan Stanley said in an April 10 research report.

For a base case, the brokerage expects Triumph to gain 10% market share in the middleweight category by FY26 and sell 11,000 units per month. For the bull case, it expects Triumph to reach 30% market share by fiscal 2026 with a 39,000 monthly run rate and margin of 25%.

“In our view, Bajaj will initially focus on creating a pull brand rather than a volume push,” the brokerage said in the research report, while raising its average selling price assumptions “slightly due to a better mix”. 

“We keep our Ebitda margin estimates unchanged, and hence, our fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025 earnings per share estimates decline by about 1% each,” Morgan Stanley said, even as it maintained an ‘overweight’ rating on the stock and raised its price target to Rs 4,486 from Rs 4,449 per share.

Triumph Motorcycles and Royal Enfield, both more than century-old British brands, trace their roots to within 50 miles of each other in the UK. While the Bonneville maker continues to be headquartered in Hinckley, Enfield Motor Co. was born in Redditch but bred in Madras, now Chennai, to service the Indian Army after independence. 

That move, in a way, helped the Bullet maker survive, while Triumph—like other British motoring icons—succumbed against the onslaught of nifty Japanese bikes in the 1970-80s.

British billionaire John Bloor revived Triumph in the 1990s, when Royal Enfield—now with the Lals of Eicher Motors Ltd.—languished in the wake of an onslaught by “fill it, shut it, forget it” motorcycles. Siddhartha Lal, the scion of the billionaire Lal family, revived Royal Enfield in the late 2000s to make it the middleweight powerhouse it is today. Triumph, meanwhile, dominates the luxury bike segment in India.

Now, they are making a play for each other’s stomping grounds.

The Interceptor 650 and Continental GT 650, launched in November 2018, was a jab at Triumph’s best-selling Bonneville line-up. The Enfields, priced at a fraction of the incumbent, quickly became the parallel twin of choice in most global markets, including the UK. Enfield has also been pushing its breadwinner—the 350 cc motorcycles—abroad since 2021.

Triumph has now pitched the Speed 400 and Scrambler 400X squarely in Enfield territory, targeting its upcoming 450 cc line-up as well as its wildly successful 350cc motorycles, in its home turf of India.

Interestingly, just days after Triumph unveiled the 400s at The Bike Shed in London on June 27, India’s first Dakar Rally racer CS Santosh posted an Instagram Reel that showed him taking the upcoming Himalayan 450 through its paces at his BigRock Dirt Park near Bengaluru. Until then, the motorcycle remained in the realm of spy shots.

And then, there’s the Hero-Harley X440 that’s targeted at the Classic 350.

What remains to be seen then is how Royal Enfield survives the onslaught by brands that enjoy as much equity—the first real challengers to its middleweight crown. If Eicher Motors’ stock performance over the past week is any indication, the thump is at risk of sputtering sooner than later.